Tuesday, December 30, 2014

I didn't bother with a year end Top 10 fragrances list this year, so I hope you'll enjoy this last fragrance review of 2014. These body products supposedly double as fragrance. From what I have gathered, at least one of these scented deodorant sticks absolutely does, and smells like good old fashioned Brut! I can't confirm it's a Fougere but I laughed at the review on Basenotes that described Axe Essence as a scent for "troubled jocks". The notes for Axe Essence according to Basenotes are Green Apple, Crushed Leaves, Thyme and Fig Leaves. Musk was listed as a base on another site. Yes it's musky but also somewhat herbaceous and green, also slightly fruity sweet. It's a meeting of traditional masculinity and modern gourmand freshness, leaning towards the familiar such as Polo, Drakkar, Aramis and the aforementioned once drugstore staple. Skip the Chanel Bleu and use this.

Axe (aka Lynx) is a line of men's body products by Unilever. It's interesting how the logo with intertwined dragon and unicorn resembles a caduceus.

Friday, December 26, 2014

At long last I have my Socionics type, and Myers-Briggs type by default, even if the two systems don't exactly correlate. Between consultancy by Olga Tangemann, psychologist, socionist and founder of The School of Associative Socionics, the Reinin dichotomies and The Original Socionics Test at Sociotype.com, I was able to see why I tested as a Feeling type as opposed to Logical for so long. Apparently, I'm an LII Logical Intuitive Introvert (INTj) with a Ne (extraverted Intuition) subtype (LII-2Ne) with a 99% likelihood of being typed as an EII Ethical Intuitive Introvert (INFj). That result corresponds perfectly with my MBTI result as an INxx (INTJ, INFJ, INTP, INFP). Since I was typed as an LII in Socionics and an INTP in MBTI (CAPT) both by professional consultants, I'd say these are my types (both LII INTj and MBTI INTP are Ti (introverted Thinking) types). Although we might know ourselves well, I believe there is value in objective assessments from the outside, because we can't always see ourselves that clearly. Just as we can be susceptible to the forer effect and believe we are what we are told, we can believe what we want based on beliefs we already hold (cognitive bias), and ignore our own blind spots for wanting to see ourselves the way we want. I think the truth is somewhere in between the subjective views of ourselves and others, and an objective truth that we can't completely grasp but absolutely exists--perhaps a logical way of perceiving existence.

As for the concept of duality (INTj Robespierre and ESFJ Hugo), I'm not sure if Keirsey had the right idea or not, that Intuitive types get along better with other Intuitives and the same for Sensing types, but there is something to the fact that there are a number of ENFJs in my life, a relatively rare type as mine also happens to be (both ESFJ and ENFJ are Fe (extraverted Feeling) types, but the Intuitive (N) type is rarer).

Friday, December 12, 2014

Season's Greetings! Here's another utterly mundane PINK MANHATTAN post, one of many as of late. Hey, we all have to eat, and what's better than "cooking" pre-seasoned or, heck, frozen, foods that taste better than expected? Bless the people who have made this possible (not that I've ever been an avid cook)! Speaking of pre-seasoned food, I've been addicted to this chicken from the supermarket that tastes really good; it's marinated in some kind of spicy red sauce. I noticed yesterday that this package of ready-to-cook pre-seasoned chicken had a label on it saying it's chicken, in some kind of pseudo-Asian font. That got me thinking...could this be kimchi sauce? Has Korean flavor arrived in mainstream America dressed up as nondescript oriental fare? It's going to be an interesting experiment when I go buy a jar of kimchi sauce to compare (Edited to add: Or could it be gochujang sauce?) (Image: fora.mtv.ca)